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Certainly didnt get around to a few major features that Id really hoped for (like being able to steal a car – kinda important in a game that references Grand Theft Auto)

But I’m certainly happy with what I did get done over the weekend. ‘Super Theft Auto’ is a good start for an interesting little mini game.

You can play the current version of the game at the following link after installing the plugin (links/instructions are on the page- the only major OS not supported is OSX):

[LINK] (youll also find it on the CharityGameJam games submission screen of course)

Theres also a link on the page to a .blend download of the setup for the computer VideoTexture scene, youll need Blender 2.64a if you want to mess around with it.

Features:

A game within a game – You start in a 3D world with a 3D computer, the (kinda) NES style game plays on the screen of the Funkytron computer (press space to zoom in and focus on the screen to actually see what youre doing)

Large city area to explore (sadly only on foot at this stage)

Pedestrians wander around the city (they make good target practice)

Cars driving around (rare and very basic implementation)

Gun ammunition to pick up

Basic scoring system (you can score points for killing people)

Either way, this was a fun miniLD to participate in, was great to see the charity fundraising goals surpassed! (for a second time) Now I look forward to playing some of the other games

Making some more progress, but the past few hours have been slow and problematic. I ran into one large problem, which was a kind of ‘grey’ area cause by modules/functions Ive never used in combination before (not sure if anyone has tbh). The main problem came down to the default use of ‘mipmaps’ in the BGE and Blender itself. Basically, mipmapping doesnt work well with sprites. It ‘blends’ the pixels of textures and the results are blurry, ugly sprites for super low-resolution stuff, ie the image below shows the effect:

Mipmapping (fuzzy) vs disabled Mipmapping (sharp)

This is fine in Blender itself, you can simply globally disable mipmapping, problem solved. But the issue existed when I then tried to run the game in the Burster plugin (for web-browser play), mipmapping was on by default – and theres NO way to turn it off. So the all-important browser version of the game was completely fuzzy.

My initial idea was to completely redesign the ‘architecture’ of the game. Splitting the Scene into two independent scenes, one for the 3D computer area, one for the mini-game area being projected onto the screen. I wasnt even sure if the VideoTexture module would work between scenes (which is the only reason why I didnt setup the game like this initially), but after a bit of hair-pulling coding I managed to get it sorted. I then applied a pixelated shader, which was applied to the mini-game scene so it would be pixelated, even though mipmapping was permanently enabled.

The new problem: The shader was applied to the scene, but the VideoTexture plugin wasnt ‘seeing’ the now pixelated version of the level, so the screen was still blurry even though almost everything was running exactly as Id planned.

After some more hair-pulling moments, another much simpler solution came to mind, all I had to do was increase the texture size to sharpen the pixel edges (compromising with slightly larger file-sizes). Major derp moment. This solution took 5 minutes to implement (thankful this is still early on and I dont have hundreds of textures to edit) whereas the previous failed method took almost 2 hours. Gah! At least the scenes are better organised now, the ‘architecture’ of the game is much more solid so its not a complete loss…

Either way, I just need to sort out a sprite animation issue and I’ll have a playable demo up and running for people to try out.

Damn Mipmaps…..

Heres a look at the shader too, it worked pretty well and I’ll probably use it in future projects. You can see it in the background scene, a kind of ‘distant city’ view which is the current WIP city for the game. I wont be using anything like this in final game now (happened completely by accident) but I thought it looked a bit interesting.

Finally finished putting together the timelapse from my Ludum Dare weekend. So check it out!

*Edit* Changed the video to the correct timelapse – how embarrassment…

I also look forward to hearing more feedback on my game, so if you feel like playing a 3D survival horror/puzzle game, then the page for my Ludum Dare entry is here – [link]

Now its time to get voting. Ill probably do one more post, a summary of my favourite games from this LD (I plan to vote on at least a couple per page of entries, that way Ill get to at least see all of the games, and play a good deal of them too) Ive seen some pretty awesome ones so far!

Well, that weekend was a crazy 48 hours. A lot of it is a blur (Im going to enjoy watching my own timelapse since I cant remember 75% of everything I went though)

The best thing though – Success!!

This was my 3rd Ludum Dare to date, yet the first where Ive actually finished an entry. I was cutting it close too, last night I got to sleep around 4am, and at that stage it was T-8 hours, and I still didnt have a proper level or any puzzels to solve. So after sleeping 3 hours I had a very compressed burst of productive work to get the final level design and features down (I was still finishing off a pretty important feature at T-10mins) O_o

Either way, it was an enjoyable experience and I was very glad to get something finished which I could call a ‘game’. I might venture away from a 3D game for the next LD however… So-much-work…

Ok so the theme is ‘Tiny World’, which Id given a -1 to both times I could vote for it. So, at a bit of a loss as to what I should make at this stage!

Time for some serious thinking. I have some ideas for a game Id like to make, but how to make it work with the theme….. Thats what makes Ludum Dare such an interesting event though. So Im not complaining! Sometimes its fun to never know exactly whats going on

Also, Im screen-capturing the full 48 hours (I did the same with LD22 but was too disappointed to make the timelapse at the end), so hopefully Ill come out of this LD ready to put the timelapse together.

Yep, this will be my third Ludum Dare – and after never submitting a game to the previous 2 I participated in, I’m hoping this will be the one!

I have a ton of homework going on for Uni this week which was making an attempt at this LD seem unlikely, but most of it is due Friday or much later next week. So I should go into the weekend comfortably and ready for this LD. I also managed to somehow score the entire weekend free from shifts at work, don’t ask me how in the world that happened, I’m still confused about it working out so well.

The only issue is that I don’t have a computer/laptop to work on. My ‘current’ one died about a week ago. Thankfully I was quick to order a new one, which should arrive tomorrow. So it should be a mad scramble to get everything installed and running as Ill be needing.

The kind of game I’m leaning towards this time round is a dark and atmospheric horror/exploration based game, so if a theme matches that I’ll be set since I have a few fitting ideas already. Between now and the weekend though, I’ll be trying to think up some other game ideas as well – to avoid that dangerous moment when the countdown reaches 0 and you have no idea what in the world to make…

Ill more than likely be using BGE (Blender Game Engine) again as well, along with my other usual tools (python for programming, gimp or photoshop for 2D work, audacity for audio etc) but depending on the theme I might end up doing a 8bit style game with openGL instead (been keen to work on a game like that for a while now)

Finally, since I live in South Australia, Ill at some point make the effort to head to Adelaide and attend attend meetup on the Adelaide Uni campus (as if I don’t spend enough time there already). Will be good to work on some games in a more social environment than the dark, dusty corner of my room.

So Im home finally, starting my game at 5.30pm, so I should be able to get a decent 8 hours in before some sleep.

Im very happy with the theme ‘Alone’, as my favourite game pre-idea for this LD fits in very nicely with it, and I should be able to make a decent haunting sci fi horror game with interesting story (and a twist!)

Also, just as I start, a decent storm rolls in, the thunder is shaking my house, so fingers crossed that the power doesnt go out…..

Either way, its time to get into planning and working on my main character. Im so organised for this LD that I have screen-capturing going on already as I write this, so this whole thing will hopefully result in a decent game + my first ever LD timelapse

My first LD was LD19, and I havent had a chance to participate since so Im looking forward to really getting into this one.

Ive got a couple of things which will get in the way (like a christmas party and a shift at work), but for the most part I should be able to focus on working on a game. Ive started covering my whiteboard in LD scribbles and plannings, heres the timeline for my LD so far!

The LD for me will start at 1pm in the arvo, where Ill be at a christmas party with notepad in hand (pre production time!), so Ill be starting work on my game 3-4 hours into LD. The arrows then represent the time that I can put towards game designing, the diagonally dashed parts are events/work and the hashed parts are sleeping time(s)

From this Ive worked out Ill have ~34 hours minimum to work on my game over the weekend with minor sleep deprivation, which isnt too bad I think.

So all going well (and with kittens not being the theme!) Ill be getting into this LD